Kids get it.

Children never cease to amaze me.

During the holidays in our office, we had on our checkout desk a simple white Christmas tree the size of an 8oz paper coffee cup. It lit up and was a small part of our festive décor. As one of my patients checked out after an appointment, her daughter went right up to it, took in an audible and pleasantly surprised-sounding breath, and couldn’t help but exclaim, “Oh. It’s so beautiful!” A medical assistant and I just looked at each other and exchanged touched glances at the purity of the emotion.

Children are surprisingly forgiving, too. One minute they are upset about something a friend did, and the next, they can quickly find a way to look past it and be playful again. They are more resilient than we give them credit for. They want to be happy and they want others not to be sad.

Which is why I was both touched – yet not that surprised – at how some 1^st graders in Minnesota supported the Viking kicker who missed what should have been a winning field goal in the last few seconds of last week’s football game against the Seahawks. I was happy for my Seattle team, but couldn’t help but feel for Brian Walsh. Anyone who’s ever worked in any field (medicine or otherwise) that involves making and executing critical decisions in an instant understands that type of weight. And like medicine, though football is considered a team sport with many players, in the end, it can be one person who ends up shouldering (or feeling responsible) for a bad outcome. Even the understandably upset Vikings coach, who should lead his team as an example of sportsmanship, made an unsupportive, frustrated quip to the media after the game. Since then, he has provided a better perspective to his team’s loss of the game. And, of course, may people used social media as a platform for malicious commentary without consequence.

As someone who lived and breathed Bulls basketball in Chicago years ago, and now is exposed to some of the real tough challenges in peoples’ lives,  I can truly say that, in the end, “it’s only a game.” And we are – each one of us – human.

Those first-graders know that. Kids know how to bounce back. They know how to rally and support. We should all learn from them in this very real and important game of life.